Page 119 - Winning The Credit Game Bundle (CK Patrick)

probably will not be allowed to register a business
with the same name. Each state should have its own
name check tool, usually located at an official
“state.gov” website. Using your state’s official
“state.gov” name check tool will help ensure that you
are using your state’s complete public records, and not
a free search offered by a company that may have
incomplete information.
Search federal trademark records to see if someone
else has already trademarked the name. These can be
searched at: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov
Check to see if the domain name “yourbusiness.com”
is available. If it’s not, that may make it harder to drive
customers to your website, as they may accidentally
end up at the other company’s website instead.

Once you have found a name that you love and your target
audience seems to like, and you have confirmed that its trade-
mark and domain are available, you’re ready to purchase your
website domain. I recommend you do this right away, because
although it is quicker, cheaper, and easier than registering your
business as a legal entity, for all these reasons, a domain name is
also more likely to be snatched up by another entrepreneur
while you’re doing your business registration paperwork!
Of note, most domain names should not cost much more than
$20 per year to register. If you find that an unscrupulous busi-
ness such as a domain “squatter” is demanding hundreds or
thousands of dollars in exchange for your domain name, it may
be worth contacting the company squatting on the domain to tell
them that what they’re doing is probably illegal.
“Domain squatting,” or the practice of buying a domain and
then demanding many times the domain name’s market value
from anyone who wants to buy it, is indeed illegal in the U.S. in
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most cases. Some profiteers do it anyway, hoping that people
will pay exorbitant prices for the domains they’ve acquired
without realizing that the practice is illegal. If such a company

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